Car classification

2.3.1 Classification of Cars 

In order to make it easier for the end consumer to understand what kind of car/cars a particular manufacturing plant produces, they divided all cars into classes. After the introduction of the car classification, everything fell into place. A person who wanted to buy a passenger vehicle could, without deriving complex formulas of his wishes and preferences, decide what class of car he needed. Each class has some generalizing characteristics that partly describe the functional purpose of the car. 

The official standardized classification is complex. It is used exclusively in regulatory documents. The system of the unofficial European classification of passenger cars (Table 1), which is often used by journalists from various specialized media, is one of the easiest to understand.

Note
Due to the fact that the size of cars has increased over time, in order to please consumers, certain models that were placed by manufacturers in a certain class, in fact, started belonging to a higher class. Therefore, arose the necessity to expand the classification framework. The designations remained the same, but with the addition of the "+" symbol (the differences are shown in table 2).

2.3.2  Table 1. Unofficial European Classification of Passenger Cars 

Class letter symbol	European name	Description	Length, mm	Width, mm	Example
A	Mini cars	Extra small class	Up to 3600	Up to 1600	Ford Ka, Citroen C1, Opel Adam, Toyota iQ, Suzuki Splash
B	Small cars	Small class	3600–3900	1500–1700	Nissan Micra, Volkswagen Polo, Skoda Fabia, Seat Ibiza
C	Medium cars	Small middle class	3900–4300	1600–1700	Volkswagen Golf, Ford Focus, Audi A3
D	Larger cars	Middle class	4300–4600	1690–1730	Ford Mondeo, Toyota Avensis, Hyundai Sonata, Volkswagen Passat, Audi A4, BMW 3
E	Executive cars	Upper middle class/business class	4600–4900	1730–1820	Volvo S80, Audi A6, BMW 5, Mercedes-Benz E-class, Lexus ES
F	Luxury cars	Luxury class/executive class	Over 4900	Over 1820	Mercedes-Benz S-класса, BMW 7 series, Audi A8, Lexus LS
S	-	Sports cars, coupes, convertibles	-	-
M	-	Minivans (MPV), compact vans, high-capacity wagons	-	-	Ford Galaxy, Hyundai H-1, Fiat Doblo, Volkswagen Caravelle
J	-	Off-road wagons (SUVs)	-	-

2.3.3  Table 2. Extended Unofficial European Classification of Passenger Cars 

Note
S, M and J classes remained unchanged